Marchesa / Fall 2012 RTW

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As a choir of angels echoed through the Palm Court of the Plaza hotel Wednesday afternoon, Marchesa’s Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig sent out a chorus of frothy, gilded frocks of the highest order. Their otherworldliness was inspired by William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s dramatic nineteenth-century painting A Soul Brought to Heaven, and the effect of their shimmering embroidered silhouettes ending in sweeping and swishing tulle made it seem as if the models were walking through clouds in an area of heaven reserved only for the truly glamorous.

Wings were sewn into elaborate tapestries that were then cut into a cocoon coat and short cocktail dresses, and many of the more formal looks were covered with white feathers either sprouting from the dress itself or sewn onto the bodices in wing formations.

But for all the divine inspiration at play, the pieces that stood out were the ones that originated from a darker place. Chapman and Craig had also been looking at images of skeletons—albeit ones decorated in gemstones and precious metals, are you surprised?—and deftly took what could be potentially a macabre element and made it light. One romantic, almost Spanish-feeling black-and-gold lace dress was draped over a mesh bodysuit embroidered with a fine golden skeleton. And a short blood-red number had lace stretched in shapes mimicking the muscles of the body and one strip down the spine. Rather than look gruesome, they were quite beautiful. With less than two weeks until the Academy Awards, one couldn’t help but imagine how dreamy they’d be on one of Hollywood’s young mortals.